


It Gets Easier (But It Never Gets Easy)

by PawnToBishop4 (AbsolutelyNotAlex)



Series: B2/Jason Isbell [1]
Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: 1960s, Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gambling, Making Up, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-Canon, Post-Moscow (The Queen's Gambit), Unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29322849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsolutelyNotAlex/pseuds/PawnToBishop4
Summary: A Benny-centric, post-Moscow reunion fic wherein Benny is as Fucked Up (TM) as Beth is.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Series: B2/Jason Isbell [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153874
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62





	It Gets Easier (But It Never Gets Easy)

Benny is drunk. Hammered. Fucking bombed, in the words of one certain redheaded chess queen. And, he thinks, that’s an irony in itself because that redheaded chess queen is sober, and also what had driven him to drink. She hadn’t come back to New York, and at the time that had bothered Benny enough that he went down to the liquor store and bought a bottle of cheap scotch. Before she’d ever even left for Russia, her agent had called him, as well as others, about Beth. On the phone, he’d managed to get the agent to tell him the date of her return to the United States, and two days after, he’d decided that getting inebriated was the best way to fix the problem.

Now, he’s sitting in a shitty folding chair, plastered and unable to banish her from his mind. He thinks about the time she spent in this very apartment, and if he closes his eyes he can see her in the chair across from him; she always sat with one knee pulled up to her chest and the other foot on the floor. The image of her is burned behind his eyes, and in the midst of his waking daydream he lets the landline ring. It will wait, he thinks. 

  
  


The next morning, Benny has the worst hangover of his life. He wants nothing more than to lay in bed and wait for the sweet release of death, but he’s prevented by a knock on the door. He takes a moment to make sure he won’t vomit when he opens his mouth.

“Go ’way.”

Whoever it is knocks again, heavier and more insistent than before. 

Gathering his strength and willpower, he wraps the blanket around his shoulders like a cape and trudges to the door, flinging it open. 

“What do you w-” he looks up and stops dead in his tracks. 

There, standing at his door, is Beth Harmon. 

Seeing her gives him the energy to be angry.

“What are you doing here? How dare you?! You left me alone, twice. I know you got back three days ago, and you didn’t even call. On the phone while you were in Moscow, I was ready to forgive you. For everything. But then you went and pulled the same crap-”

_ “Benny.”  _

It’s the first thing she’s said since she showed up, and it’s also enough to make him fall silent, much as he hates it. Instead of continuing, she pulls a newspaper out of her handbag and gives it to him. 

There are two pictures of her on the front page, one of her in Georgetown, and the other of her shaking hands with the president over a chessboard. 

_ “That  _ is where I’ve been for the past three days. Trying to appease FIDE and the USCF. As soon as I finished at the White House, I flew straight here from Washington. I haven’t even been back to Kentucky yet.”

Benny deflates. “Oh,” he says weakly. 

“And it seems like you’re one to talk. You look like I felt after Paris.”

At that, he knows he has no case, so he steps aside and lets her in. She puts her bags down and heads straight to the kitchen. He turns back towards the bedroom, but she shakes her head.

“No,” says Beth, “you need to sit up.”

He grumbles and sits down on the pile of cushions in one corner, and a few minutes later she hands him something vaguely resembling coffee that makes his eyes water when he smells it. 

“What did you put in this?” He asks, wrinkling his nose.

“You don’t want to know,” She says gravely, “just drink it all in one go. Don’t stop.” 

Just the smell of the awful concoction would’ve made Benny vomit if he hadn’t thrown up everything in his stomach at three that morning. It takes him a full minute to work up the nerve to drink the contents of the cup, and when he does, it tastes awful. He manages to get it all down, and she hands him a cup of water immediately after, which he takes gratefully. By the time he’s washed the taste out of his mouth, he’s already starting to feel a little better. 

“Now will you tell me what that was?”

“Gasoline,” she deadpans, pouring what’s left of the scotch down the sink.

As he sees her throw the empty bottle into the garbage can, he’s hit with fierce pride in her, knowing that a month ago she would’ve downed the contents after a handful of pills. He wants to apologize for snapping at her earlier, but apologies are not something that he knows, so he keeps silent while she rinses out the coffee cup. When she’s done she turns to him.

“Keep drinking water,” She hands him another cup as she heads towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Benny hates how desperate he sounds.

“My hotel. I’ve got an interview on the Tonight Show tomorrow.”

“You could stay here.”

“No, I can’t. I’ll call you later, though.” She shoulders her bags.

“Beth-” it’s the first time he’s said her name since she arrived, but it doesn’t stop her.

“Bye, Benny.” She says softly. 

With that, she closes the door behind her. Leave it to Beth Fucking Harmon to show up, pour you a cup of magic hangover juice, then leave as quickly as she came. When he stands up, he sees that she’s left some money on the counter. There is a small note on top reading ‘For the phone call.’

_ Well.  _ He knows what he’ll be doing tonight.

  
  


Beth, even for all her addictive tendencies, never got into gambling. Benny remembers getting sick of being in the apartment one night while she was staying with him, and deciding they should go to a casino. She’d been hesitant, but when they got there he’d given her twenty-five dollars and told her to double her money, so she had. She’d sat down at the blackjack table and come back to him with exactly fifty dollars. Benny, on the other hand, would play until his wallet was empty. She’d given him the fifty dollars back, and he’d had to use that to pay rent the next month because he was wiped out of everything else. It had started when he was younger, betting dimes on games of chess, until it devolved into something that always stands just over his shoulder. Now, if he’s alone on a night, there’s no question on what he’ll be doing, so long as he has even a single penny. 

  
  


The next day, Benny finds himself watching Beth’s interview with Johnny Carson. He hates Johnny Carson, and television in general, but it’s  _ Beth.  _ He’s able to get a slightly better look at her this time; she’d had her back turned most of the time when she’d come the previous day. She wears a loose-fitting white slip dress, and the color makes her hair stand out. It’s a little longer than when he last saw her, and she’s forgone the silk scarf she often wore. 

She shakes Johnny Carson’s hand and sits down in a chair. Once the audience quiets down, he speaks. He starts off with questions about being in Russia, then about her win, then the adjournment.

“Now, what is it called in chess when you stop the game in the middle?” He asks.

“That’s called an adjournment,” Beth explains, “which is what happened in my game against Vasily Borgov. That was disadvantageous because the Russians work in teams, so he had others helping him after the match.”

“I’m told that you had your own team, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell us about that?”

“Well, there was Harry Beltik, who was the Kentucky state champion. He doesn’t play much anymore, but he’s got a different perspective than I do, which helped, I think. I trained with Benny Watts, and they both called during the adjournment, as well as Matt and Mike, who organize tournaments, along with Hilton Wexler and Arthur Levertov. Another friend, D.L. Townes, was there in person, and they were all a big help.”

“And were any of these men… maybe more than just chess friends?”

At that, Benny wants to strangle Johnny Carson, but Beth handles it well. 

“Mr. Carson, unless you’re on the hunt for a third wife, I don’t see why you feel the need to ask about my personal relationships.”

The crowd bursts into laughter, and Benny smiles a little too when he sees Johnny fumbling for a response.

She gives a small smile and blushes, which makes Benny think of  _ other things  _ that made her blush, and when the interview is over he’s left sitting half-hard in front of a blank television screen.

“Fuck,” he says.

  
  


Beth, true to her word, calls him a week later. He’d been out until four the previous night, and he snaps as he groggily picks up the phone.

“What?”

“Hello to you too.”

He yawns, and she must hear it.

“Did you just wake up?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s almost five.”

“Oh.”

There is a pause, then he speaks again.

“How is Kentucky?”

“Good. The same as always.” A beat. “How is New York?”

“Fine. Cold.”

“Hm.”

Benny can tell that she’s waiting on him to say something else, but he doesn’t, and over the phone he hears her sigh.

“Well, thank you for the call, in Moscow. If you see Arthur or Hilton, thank them for me too.”

He says nothing.

“Bye.”

Just like that, she hangs up, and Benny has the urge to call her back, although he doesn’t know what he’d say. 

  
  


It’s starting to get bright outside when Benny stumbles out of the pool hall. That night had been a good night, and he’d walked away with a hundred dollars more in his wallet, even after he’d paid for drinks. When he gets back to his apartment he collapses onto the bed, and he thinks he only stays there for a minute but the next thing he knows he’s being woken up by a knock on the door. When he opens it, he sees none other than  _ Harry Beltik.  _ What is  _ Harry Beltik  _ doing at his apartment? 

“What’re  _ you  _ doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop by and say happy Easter.”

“It’s  _ February.”  _

“It’s April.” 

“Oh.” He pauses. “Happy Easter,” he says, closing the door. 

  
  


Two days later, the phone rings again. Beth speaks first this time.

“Benny.”

“Beth.”

“Harry told me he dropped by while he was in New York.”

“Of  _ course _ he did.”

“Have you read the news lately?”

“No.”

“Right, you don’t even know what day it is.”

“So he ratted me out, did he?”

“Benny, I’m worried about you.”

“Well thank you for your concern, but you can mind your own goddamn business. And tell Beltik to do the same.”

“If that’s what you really want. Oh, and Benny? Buy a  _ Chess Review.” _

  
  


Benny does in fact, buy a  _ Chess Review,  _ and it nearly empties what’s left in his wallet. He waits until he gets back to his apartment to read it, and when he does he’s left seething. Most of it is normal, except for one article, which is about him. It’s titled  _ ‘The Rise and Fall of A US Champion.’ _

_ “Benny Watts was the United States Champion, until he was beaten by Elizabeth Harmon, who, after training with Watts, recently defeated Vasily Borgov at the Moscow Invitational. While he held the title, he was a force to be reckoned with, and Harmon lost to Watts herself before winning against him. I asked Harmon to comment on the decline in Watts’ popularity and lack of participation in the chess world as of late, but she declined. It seems that after training her, Watts merely dropped off the face of the earth. Whatever happened, there is one question everyone seems to be asking: will he be attempting to reclaim his title at the approaching US Open this year? It’s not looking likely.” _

It goes on, but Benny doesn’t read it. Fuck them. The press, the Chess Federation, all of them. He takes a shot of whiskey and heads for the casino.

  
  


It’s a month before the phone rings again, and when it does, Benny is plastered. He picks it up and tries his damndest not to slur his words.

“Yeah?”

“Are you playing in the Open this year?”

“Maybe. Why are you calling me?”

“To tell you to get your shit together.”

“Well if you would come to New York you wouldn’t have to call and check on me.”

“No. You don’t get to guilt-trip me. You  _ know  _ I can’t.”

“I do know that, you’ve made that much clear.  _ Why?”  _ He doesn’t notice his voice has started to crescendo.

“If I fly up there to stay with you, I won’t stay sober. You’re drunk, and I know you’re gambling again.”

He’s yelling now. “You don’t know  _ shit! _ And so what if I want to drink, or gamble? I don’t have a problem or anything, I know what I’m doing!”

_ “Really?  _ Who do you think paid your rent last month? Because it wasn’t you.”

That shocks him into silence.

“I’m not an idiot, Benny.”

“Well, I’m not an addict.”

“Ok,” she says, then she hangs up on him.

  
  


It takes two more months for Benny to hit rock bottom. Beth doesn’t call at all any more, and his feelings about that fact range from one end of the spectrum to the other. On some days, he thinks he’d do anything to have her speak to him at all, and on others, he hopes he never hears from her again. Neither judgement is accurate. 

He knows it’s getting worse when he has to stop going to pool halls. He used to be good at pool, but he’s almost always drunk now, so even hitting the cue ball is a struggle. Instead, he sticks to casinos, even though his poker game is suffering too. He manages to make rent one month, but then he slips back into his old ways. Eventually, he runs completely out of money. There’s nothing in his bank account, no spare change lying around, and not only can he not afford to gamble or pay rent, he can’t afford to feed himself. He has nowhere to turn.

  
  


The good thing about rock bottom, Benny realizes, is that it becomes easy to swallow your pride, and do what you need to do to crawl out of the dark hole you’ve dug for yourself. So he picks up the phone and dials a number that he thinks nothing will make him forget. He hears four rings, and thinks briefly that she won’t answer, but on the fifth he hears her pick up the phone.

“Hello?” 

“I need help.”

“Are you at the apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Stay where you are. I’ll be there in three hours.” 

  
  


When Beth arrives, Benny thinks he’s never been so happy to see another person in his life. She hasn’t done her makeup or hair, and there is no sympathy in her eyes as she breezes into the apartment, but she’s there.

“Don’t move,” she says. 

He doesn’t. 

With no hesitation, she picks through every inch of space and pours any alcohol she finds down the drain, then gets rid of all the empty bottles. When she’s finished, she turns to face him with her hands on her hips.

“When did you take your last drink?” She asks.

“A couple hours before I called you.”

“Then pretty soon you’re going to start withdrawal. You can get medicine for it, but if you do that then I can’t be here. Do you want the pills?”

“No,” he says, hating how desperate he sounds. “Stay here.” 

“Alright.” She takes a breath and squares her shoulders.

“The air mattress is in the closet.”

“Oh, neither one of us is going to be sleeping tonight.”

He’s silent for a moment. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” She says, smiling grimly.

  
  


Benny’s apartment is the cleanest it’s been in months. 

“You don’t want to go through withdrawal in the middle of a mess,” she tells him as she changes the sheets on his bed. 

When she finishes cleaning, she leaves and comes back thirty minutes later trying to juggle four bags of groceries. 

“How long has it been since you ate?” She asks.

“Why does it matter?”

_ “Benny,”  _ she warns.

“Fine. Three days.”

_ “Fuck.”  _ She starts pulling things out in the kitchen.

“I’m not hungry.” 

“I know you’re not, that’s withdrawal, but you need to eat while you still can. With any luck you’ll keep it down long enough to digest it before the nausea sets in, and then the delirium won’t be as bad.”

In the end, she makes him eat a bowl of plain pasta, and by the time he finishes it he’s starting to sweat. He pulls his shirt off with shaking hands, and she glances at him knowingly. 

“I think now I’d get comfortable if I were you,” she tells him, “but you need to stay sitting up for a while.” 

He stumbles into his room and collapses on the bed. Beth puts a few cushions and pillows in one corner and sits down, covering herself with an extra blanket. He’s still sweating, so he wipes his face with a hand and pulls himself into a seated position. His ears are ringing, and his whole body feels like it’s trembling. He’s not sure how long he stays there; it could be forever, five minutes, or somewhere in between. 

Beth hasn’t moved from her spot in the corner. She stares at the ceiling, eyes tracking something that must be visible only to her. She shifts, and then his mind goes blank.

  
  


Benny’s recollection of the next four days is spotty at best. Eventually Beth moves from the floor and sits on the other side of the bed, putting a pillow between her back and the wall. She still mostly looks at the ceiling, but every so often he feels her lay her hand on his forehead, and he swears once he feels her fingers graze his brow as she brushes the hair from his face. He loses all concept of time, but on what must be the fourth day, he starts to improve. He’s still feverish and shaky, but he’s lucid. Beth must know, because she speaks for the first time in four days.

“The worst of it should be over now.”

He doesn’t reply.

  
  


After a week, Benny’s feeling back to normal, whatever ‘normal’ means now. Beth has started sleeping on the air mattress again, now that he’s stopped hallucinating. She doesn’t speak much, and it’s only at this point that Benny stupidly realizes why; she’d already done this, alone. That thought is enough to make him break the silence.

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

She tears her eyes away from the ceiling. “For what?”

“You shouldn’t’ve had to do this. To stay here with me.”

She shrugs, never one to make her true feelings known so easily. 

“What do I do now? Now that it’s over, I mean.” 

“Get on with it. If you think you need therapy, go to therapy. Find something else to do with your evenings, and eventually it gets easier.”

“What about AA?”

“I don’t think AA works for people like us. If the plan is to quit forever, then there’s no point counting days. I didn’t think it helped, but if you want to go, try it.”

“Thank you.”

She doesn’t reply.

  
  


“I think,” Beth says one day, “that I should find somewhere else to stay, or go back to Kentucky.”

Benny had seen this coming. She’s been unusually stoic, to the point where she looks unhappy. But he still feels a pang in his chest when she says she’s leaving.

“I’m glad I could help you, and that you’re doing better, but I don’t think I can stay here like this, just sitting around. It’s not good for either of us.” 

Benny knows if he opens his mouth he’ll say something stupid, like ‘no, stay,’ or ‘I need you.’ So he keeps silent. She’s gone by noon. 

  
  


They don’t talk much anymore. After Beth left New York, she’d called Benny to let him know that she was home safe, and then there was nothing. He doesn’t call her, either, because now he has to fight his own battles, like it or not. Staying sober is easier than he thought; it’s harder to stay away from the casinos. He spends most of his time in the apartment, but when he can’t take it anymore, he takes a walk to the closest park and plays chess, either against himself or against whoever will play him. He plays a few small tournaments, mostly in the local area, and slowly he builds his savings back up. 

He still sees neither hide nor hair of Beth, which is… fine, he supposes. Part of him understands that he had to do things for himself, and that it wasn’t fair for Beth to have to fly halfway up the coast to help him when she’s still trying to take care of herself, but he does miss her. Not that he’s planning to tell her that any time soon, after the last time he tried. 

Arthur and Hilton stop by a few times, which is nice, but otherwise, Benny is alone. He and Beth are not solitary people, although they may claim otherwise. When one is alone, one has to face one’s own thoughts, which is when they turn to the booze, or the pills, or the gambling. And when all of those things are gone, one finds oneself not just alone, but  _ lonely.  _ Because there is a difference. Alone is simply the state of being by oneself, but lonely is what one is when one has no one else to turn to, what Benny is. He wonders, quite often now, if Beth is simply alone, or if she’s lonely too.

  
  


Three months later, Benny picks up the phone. 

“Hello?” Beth asks.

“Grob’s Attack is total horseshit.” He says.

She doesn’t reply, but she also doesn’t hang up on him, so he charges onwards. He talks for the better part of an hour with no indication that she’s even there except the faint sound of her breathing. At the end of his rant, he sits silently, expecting her to hang up, but she still doesn’t. Eventually he puts the phone down, not sure if he’d just failed or succeeded.

  
  


He calls twice a week. Their routine never changes; he still does all the talking, and he can hear her sitting quietly on the other end of the line. Sometimes he talks about chess, sometimes about other things, like the strangers he meets in the park or the person he last played in a tournament. Once or twice he thinks he can hear her stifle a laugh, and he wishes she wouldn’t, but he never mentions it. 

  
  


After almost two months of hearing Beth sit wordlessly and breathe over a landline, Benny picks up the phone and abandons all pretense. 

“Come back to New York.”

Of course she doesn’t respond, but he presses on. 

“I haven’t had a drink since you left, and I’ve got five thousand dollars in my bank account, all earned fair.” 

He hears her inhale as if she’s about to speak, and he thinks if she refuses he might come unglued, so he cuts her off.

“Don’t say anything. Just think about it.”

A beat. “Ok.”

“Ok.”

A moment later, he hears a soft click, then the line goes dead.

  
  


Benny doesn’t hear back from Beth, and after a week he’s convinced that if he’d let her say her piece over the phone, she would have turned him down on the spot. He doesn’t like to dwell on  _ why  _ he wants her with him so bad, even though a small part of him knows exactly what it is. Cleo calls one day, which is… unexpected, to say the least. It ends with Benny angrily hanging up on her. He’s seething when there comes a knock on the door. He stomps over and jerks it open, going wide eyed with shock when he does.

_ “Beth?”  _

“I’m here. If the offer still stands.” 

It’s then that Benny does what he’d wanted to do when she showed up at his door the first time, and pulls her in for a hug. She squeaks in surprise, but puts her arms around his waist as he rests his chin on top of her head. The phone rings again, but the only person Benny really wants to talk to is in his arms, so he ignores it. It will wait, he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Even though I wrote this faster than my last fic (the responses to which are insane and way more than I expected), I actually had a lot of trouble getting into Benny's headspace, but once I did, it just went from there. The title of this comes from a song by Jason Isbell called It Gets Easier, and I'm putting this work in a series because I feel like Jason Isbell has a lot of songs that kind of fit B2, but unless I specify otherwise, later works in the series will not be connected to this one, so read them in whatever order you like. As always, let me know what you thought, and of course constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated.


End file.
